


You're a ghost town (and maybe I'm a ghost)

by PunkyNemo (TheVampireCat)



Series: Ballads for a dead man [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cabins at the end of the world, Comfort, F/M, Lots of it, Pitbulls, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7086793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVampireCat/pseuds/PunkyNemo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Safe up in the mountains with Frank following a bloody showdown in Hell's Kitchen, Karen wonders just how much more complicated things between them can get. She's about to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're a ghost town (and maybe I'm a ghost)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing a Kastle fic. I think, pretty much like everyone in the fandom, my reaction to Karen Page and Frank Castle has been "how the fuck did I get here?" and "how does this work?". I don't know the answers to either of these questions but I'm hoping to figure it out and that this fic can serve as a starting point.
> 
> I also really wanted to explore what would happen if Karen ever told Frank about Wesley and how such a situation might come to be. I hope you enjoy it. I'm probably more nervous posting this fic than I have been for any of my others, so be kind.
> 
> Title is taken from Black Lab's "Something you don't know" which is also weirdly appropriate for what goes on in this fic.
> 
> Update: This story now has a sequel called [_As days go by, the night's on fire_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7502214)

He calls her ma’am.

She doesn’t know why that complicates things but it does.

He’s used her as bait, he’s shot at her - well not _at_ her, but _near_ her at the very least - and he’s broken her heart in ways she doesn’t fully understand and maybe never will.

But he calls her ma’am. And somehow that makes things both less and more terrifying all at the same time.

And he’s doing it now. Standing next to the window in a dark log cabin at the end of the world, a pump-action shotgun in one hand and a blanket in the other, a dog at his feet. The look on his face is equally incongruous as he seems to be trying to figure out whether to worry about what’s going on here inside or there outside. 

Apparently he chooses the former.

“Ma’am, you’re freezing,” he’s saying it, has been for a while now, so she guesses it must be true, but all she can really process is that she’s in the middle of nowhere with The Punisher, that there’s an army of Russian mob on their tails, that she’s wet, scratched and bruised and minutes ago he was happily blowing men to bits. And now he’s calling her ma’am.

One of these things does not fit in with the rest. Except it kinda does.

He’s trying to shove the blanket towards her but that doesn’t seem particularly important. In her head, blankets and warmth are somewhere near the bottom of the list of Things Karen Page Finds Significant Right Now. Nearer the top are two things. In second place is the “Russian mafia just tried to murder me” and squeezing into first place just above that is “Holy Shit, Frank Castle is still alive”.

Not that she thought he wouldn't be. She doesn't think men like Frank Castle just die and no one notices. Maybe _he_ does. In fact she's pretty damn certain he thinks no one would mourn his passing. He'd be wrong, of course, and that's a whole other complication she's not ready to explore just yet. 

So no, for whatever reason, pragmatic or otherwise, she hadn’t let her mind wander too far down the road of Places Frank Castle Could Be That Are Not The Bottom Of The Atlantic but she couldn’t deny that things have been quiet around town. No dissected criminals, no Yakuza taken down in a hail of bullets, no bodies floating in the Hudson. Frank Castle was just gone. Disappeared like smoke, a fading bruise on the flesh of Hell’s Kitchen. Except he wasn’t. Not to her at least. 

“Ma’am,” insistent this time. “Ma’am please. Your clothes.”

Yes, yes her clothes. It's slowly starting to sink in. The warehouse. The woman. The freezing water. Matt. _Oh God Matt_. 

The last time she saw him he was taking down drove after drove of Russians, of Yakuza, of God knows what. Matt in his devil costume, his “little boy pajamas” as Frank snidely called them on their way up here. Matt, the blind man who sees better than she ever did. Matt, the man she once thought she could love. 

Sometimes she thinks there's no one as blind as she was.

He’ll be okay though. He has to be. Besides he came with back up - the old man with a stick and the woman, the one she saw in his bed less than a week after he'd smudged her lipstick while he kissed her on the steps outside her apartment. Way back when she’d thought he was the perfect gentleman. Before Frank. Before Nelson and Murdock shut its doors. Before Daredevil.

 _Enough. Enough now._ She shakes her head. She doesn't have the strength to think about that. Not now. Maybe later when all this is over and she's back in her apartment and warm and safe, even though “warm” and “safe” are two things she doubts she’ll ever feel again.

Not after tonight. Not after what happened.

It had been a small thing. Tiny. A quick anonymous call that came in just as Karen was getting ready to leave work. A nervous sounding woman claimed she had information on Fisk. Important information that he still owned a warehouse on the corner of 11th and 44th. That it hadn't looked all that abandoned the last time she saw it while she was walking her dog. 

The truth was it was probably nothing. Karen knew Fisk’s assets were largely depleted what with him literally buying every guard at the prison, not to mention the cash he'd poured into keeping his girlfriend out of the country and in the manner to which she became accustomed. The man didn't exactly have much anymore. But that's not to say it would be a leap for him to have retained some property, a few assets. Karen has no doubt that Fisk has a contingency plan for when he gets out. And really, it’s only a matter of time.

Either way, it wasn't something she was too concerned about checking out. Abandoned warehouses which weren't so abandoned when runaways and junkies were looking for an escape from the New York winter hardly features high on the list of Things Karen Page Finds Suspicious.

(Karen knows that maybe she should stop thinking about her life in terms of lists but lately the relative simplicity of being able to take something huge and grind it down to a few trivial words and then catalogue it as relatively unimportant appeals to her just a little too much to give up.)

She made a note of it though. _Sure yes, madam, it's something to keep in mind_. Something maybe, but only if it could connect to something else. The remnants of the Fisk empire were everywhere in Hell’s Kitchen. One more was barely a blip on the radar.

And then she got into her car with every intention of driving straight home and falling into her bed and sleeping the whole weekend away without seeing a soul. 

(Karen also knows that this self enforced isolation following Frank’s disappearance and what she likes to think of as Matt’s Big Reveal aka Prince of Lies aka Paradise Lost, is probably unhealthy. She works, she sleeps, she sometimes sees Foggy when they both have a night off. It's more existence than living really. But it's safer this way. No one to make her cry or see her crying. No one to break her heart and then break it again. No one.)

Her plan, if simple, seemed foolproof. But she forgot that old adage, the one she lived by for most of her life. _If you want God to laugh, tell him your plans._

Eleventh and 44th was on her way home because of course it was, because Hell’s Kitchen might have more crime than the entire states of Vermont and Maine combined but it still doesn't mean it's more than a few blocks in size and that you don't drive through the whole damn thing multiple times a day. Because Karen Page apparently doesn't need much of a reason to get caught up on the wrong side of a fight.

So she drove past and from the outside it looked like any other warehouse in the kitchen. Dark, seedy, miserable, a rusted, broken chain link fence glinting in the feeble moonlight. Barely worth a second look. She wasn't surprised. It's likely all Fisk’s leftover properties are falling into disrepair - might even be better if he sold while he could still get something for them. And she was going to leave it at that. Honest to God, she was. There was nothing suspicious. No lights, no movement. No Yakuza. Some abandoned crates outside and a junkyard dog sitting under a single halogen light in a pitiful attempt to stay warm in New York’s winter. 

Frank would have gone in for that alone. Hell, Frank would have probably shot up the entire Kitchen for leaving one dog in the snow. But she's not Frank and she's not stupid and while she too has an affinity for scared broken things that look tough on the outside, she wasn't about to go poking an unknown pitbull all by herself and invite it back to her place. 

Funny how things work out sometimes.

Funny indeed.

Because Karen Page is nothing if not assiduously aware of the irony that seems to to court her every step before it comes to dump all its toys on her doorstep and invite her out for a night on the town. And apparently tonight was date night. 

She rounded the corner of 11th with every intention in the world of just following the road home. _Every_ intention. But she knows that if the road to hell is paved with good intentions then the streets of Hell’s Kitchen are probably paved with bad ones, and occasionally those lead you to places you don’t want to go. Not always, but often enough. Sometimes she’s not sure of the difference anymore. 

But one thing she is sure about, something she keeps telling herself, is that despite everything she’s Karen Page, she’s not a monster.

So when she saw the woman standing in the snow, just inside the fence, wearing nothing but a bloodied slip and one shoe, she couldn’t just leave her there.

She _wouldn't_. 

So she stopped. And she called. And it was like the woman didn’t even hear her. And then she got out of the car, hugged herself against the chill of the wind, thanked her mother for telling her to wear boots in winter and not the heels she’s always preferred, and made her way over the snowed-in sidewalk. She told herself nothing was going to happen. Short of maybe a quick trip to the hospital or the police station, nothing was going to happen.

Until it did.

Until the world fell apart and Karen didn’t know how to put it back together again.

Now, standing here with Frank as he awkwardly drapes the musty smelling blanket over her shoulders, as she notices that despite his bravado his hands are shaking and his pupils black and blown, she wonders how she could have been so stupid. It’s Hell’s Kitchen. It’s Wilson Fisk. It’s fucking women standing around in the snow as bait. People say she’s astute but sometimes she thinks that’s not a descriptor she’s ever really earned.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he’s back at the window and she can just make out his profile in the moonlight. He’s not looking at her and, even though she knows he’s keeping watch in case they were followed, she wonders if there’s some other reason.

“Hard on myself?” she asks, there’s an edge to her voice, a sudden flare of rage which she tries to suppress. She’s still wishing she could beat this situation into some kind of submission, a shape that makes sense to her that she can work with. Put it on a list where she can diminish its importance and tell herself there are bigger things she needs to be worried about. But she can’t. It won’t fit and there is no list yet for Big Fucked Up Things That Karen Page Gets Involved In Which Hurt The People She Loves. 

Except there kinda is.

“I can see you’re standing there wondering what you coulda done different. Whether you brought this down on yourself? If everything is your fault,” Frank pumps the shotgun, tugs at the flimsy curtain a little. “It isn’t and you’ll go mad thinking about that. Stop it.”

“And you would know,” she snaps suddenly. “The man who runs around trashing the city, blowing up people left, right and centre. The man who calls himself The Punisher because that’s what he does. He punishes. He hurts. _You_ would know.”

He flinches. She can see it even in the dimly lit cabin. Can see the way he stifles the instinct to recoil and then looks away as if she’s slapped him and just might do it again.

“Yes,” he says simply, softly. “Yes, I would know.”

There’s no edge in his voice, no inflection. He doesn’t lean on any of the words. This isn't about winning or scoring points. It just is. 

And even though she doesn’t want to believe him, even though she’s mad as hell, if not at him, then with the whole fucking situation - with Matt, with Elektra, with the whole fucking world - she does. He _would_ know. He probably doesn’t know anything else. Not anymore.

Maybe it's just been so long that she's forgotten, that she's struggling to see Frank Castle inside the Punisher. The lonely boy who’s just looking for someone - somewhere - to go home to.

He's in pain. He has to be. He always is.

She decides then that she won’t add to it. Not like this. Yes, he kills people. Yes, she admits he should be in jail and should not be out walking the streets.Yes, he needs help even if he doesn’t think he does. But he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve someone else’s rage, someone else’s hate, someone else’s guilt. 

“Sorry,” she says.

“Ma’am?” he’s looking at her now and in the pale moonlight he seems younger, smoother. 

“Sorry,” she says again. “I shouldn't have…”

She trails off unsure where to take this, if anywhere. And he's still watching her in that Frank Castle way, which is 50% murderous rage and 50% lost puppy … and she doesn't know what to do with either one of them.

“It's alright,” he tells her and he sounds so awkward she has to fight to keep a laugh bubbling up from her belly. It’s not that it’s funny. It isn’t. It’s probably one of the most unfunny situations she’s ever been in, topped only by waking up next to her dead co-worker and being kidnapped by Wilson Fisk’s lackey. And then only just. But she’s come to know what hysteria feels like and she's verging on that edge where if she doesn't laugh, she’ll cry. 

She wonders if he has a preference.

But he's turned back to the window, seemingly relieved to have this aspect of the conversation over and she can see it’s snowing again hard and heavy, fat flakes coursing through the night sky, Wind howling through the trees. Rabbit in a snowstorm. She shakes the thought away, forces herself to focus.

“Do you think they've followed us up here? That they made it through the pass?” she asks, pulling the blanket tighter around her. That cold he told her she was feeling has come home to roost now and she shivers violently as she approaches him.

He shrugs. 

“Haven’t seen anything. Road up here was pretty bad.”

He's right. She remembers because only minutes ago she was driving it. Driving his goddamned truck while he hung out of the sunroof using a fucking kalashnikov to blow the world to hell and gone. Driving like their lives depended on it up the windy pass into the woods while he shrieked at her to go faster, to stop bouncing, to watch out that the fucking dog riding shotgun didn't fall off the fucking seat.

Yes, they have the dog. He wouldn't leave it behind. 

He’s Frank Castle. He doesn’t leave things behind.

He didn’t leave her. Even though all of it - the phone call, the warehouse, the woman standing half-naked in the snow - was a trap. Of course it was a trap. She wonders how she didn’t see that.

She's actually not too certain about the order of events that followed her getting out of the car. She's pretty sure she called out again, even more sure that she pulled out her phone and punched 911 into the keypad. It's after that things get a little fuzzy. She has no real recollection of the woman’s face but she does remember screaming. Screaming so loud she'd jammed her hands over her ears to stop it, screaming like nothing she's ever heard or wants to again. High pitched but somehow also guttural and blood curdling. And she would have done anything - _anything_ \- to make it stop. And then suddenly it did and the next thing she remembers is waking up tied to a chair, her coat gone and bucket after bucket of freezing water being thrown in her face, drenching her hair and clothes and running down her legs to form icy puddles in her boots.

She lost time after that again. She thinks there were at least ten men, thick Russian accents on all of them. Someone screaming at her about the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, someone else shouting about The Punisher. A blow to the head, another to the ribs, a boot to her stomach. Not hard enough to break anything but hard enough to hurt. To bruise.

More shouting. But not at her. And it was then that she realised she was bait. That this had nothing really to do with Karen Page, goody two-shoes legal secretary-turned-reporter, nothing really to do with naked women in the snow and abandoned warehouses. This was a trap for her and in turn a trap for the men closest to her. Lure her in and watch them give themselves up and swoop in to save her. Whoever said chivalry is dead?

And the plan worked. Matt, the old man with the stick and the woman she only knows as Elektra all showed up, along with a few dozen Yakuza and some asshole with a _kyoketsu-shoge_ \- yes Karen has had to become intimately acquainted with Japanese weaponry in the last little while - and all hell broke loose.

Once again, the details are fuzzy, not least of which was where this unholy Yakuza, Russian mob alliance came from. There was a lot of noise. A lot. Swords, chains, fists. And then gunfire. That’s when she knew Frank had arrived - when people started being mowed down with the kind of military efficiency only he possesses. It was also when Matt - no, _Daredevil_ \- started freaking out, shouting at Frank to go. To just get her and go. Leave the mess to him, stop the killing. It was ridiculous but it worked. She’s not sure why. One second men were being blown to smithereens in front of her face, gunfire echoing in her ears and the smell of kerosene in the air, and the next Frank was untying her, using a knife and a “sorry ma’am” to slice through the cable ties at her ankles and the ropes at her wrists. And then he was hauling her up and her ribs felt like they were about to send their jagged pieces of bone and cartilage out through her chest, her stomach like it was going to vomit up everything she'd eaten in the past year and maybe everything she planned to eat in the next. 

They ran. The thing she remembers most was the squelch of her boots and the wet socks within them echoing across the floor. How uncomfortable it was, how she thought she was going to fall and knew she wouldn't be able to get up again. She asked about Matt once and Frank ignored her, half carrying, half dragging her until she pushed him away and swore she was fine and she could run on her own. 

And she did. Up winding staircases and through dimly lit corridors, Frank steamrolling over anyone and anything in their path, until eventually they burst out into the snow and the night air and Karen made it her business not to think how far underground they had been. Or how they’d managed to find her.

They weren’t alone though. Yakuza and Russian mob alike surged out one of the side doors, wielding guns and swords and calling for blood. They were outnumbered, outgunned, out _everythinged_ and an army between them and her car.

She was ready to give up then. She distinctly remembers the feeling. She was freezing and her legs ached, ears still ringing from the earlier blow and her bruised ribs making it difficult to breathe. She may have been ready to just let them take her. Kill her. She could be collateral damage and Fisk could have this godforsaken city of his and shove it up his ass. She could forget Matt and spare a fond thought for Foggy. Throw Wesley into his rightful place on her list of Things That Don’t Matter To Karen Page Anymore. She could do it. She really could.

“Frank,” she whispered, taking his hand, folding her fingers into his, nothing more than a second to feel his warmth and strength. “Frank.”

There was a moment - and she thinks he will deny it for the rest of his life - when his eyes met hers and she knew he also considered giving in. That something akin to peace crossed his face. That he actually looked an approximation of “happy”, maybe the closest Frank Castle could ever get. They could go down together, it wouldn't have been so bad. Worse ways to go than with The Punisher at your side.

And then something changed. She’s not sure what it was, but it felt like he really _saw_ her, he _understood_ and everything within him rebelled against giving up.

“You drive,” he said and she blinked as he shoved his keys at her. “My truck’s on 44th. Black SUV.”

She remembers she asked him where he was going, why he couldn’t come with her but he was already running, rushing headlong into the crowd of Russian mob, headlong towards his death. She called his name, screamed it and he shouted back to get the truck and swing by the northeast corner of the building. To go. _Go now._

 _Ma’am_.

She went. Shivering and shaking and slipping on the snowy ground, bruised ribs and pounding head screaming their objections. But she went. Because Frank told her to and he hadn’t let her down yet and she’d like to repay the favour even though she’s not sure he could survive the situation he’d just thrown himself into. Even though she’s not sure why he did in the first place.

And then she was behind the wheel, tyres screeching as she hit the gas and flew around the corner. He said to meet him, he was going to be there, because he always did what he said and why the hell should this be different. He doesn’t lie. He’s not going to start now. She realises later that she was praying, that she was making deals with Matt’s God for Frank and she has no doubt that that is something Frank would have strong objections to, that he’d find it offensive and upsetting and tell her she was wasting her time and breath. But fuck him. Fuck Frank Castle and his “code”, his honour. Fuck it all. She was praying and who the hell can say but maybe that’s why they’re both here and alive, maybe Matt has a point and their lives are cosmically controlled. Maybe, but who the fuck cares anyway.

She doesn’t now and she didn’t then.

What she did care about was where the hell Frank was, because, while the building blocked her view of any of the Yakuza or Russians or whatever the hell was chasing them, Frank wasn’t there either. And he said he would be. He _said_.

His word is his bond. Or so she likes to think.

So she waited. And she waited. And she waited some more. And looking back she’s sure it was only seconds that she actually sat there, staring at the falling snow and the weak halogen lamps, checking the mirrors to see no one was following her, that somehow she had escaped unscathed and the hell army on the inside of the chain link fence had lost any interest in her.

Not that they really had any to start off with. She was just bait after all.

So maybe it was seconds but it seemed like decades. And she was just about ready to give up, ready to drive herself right down to the police department and tell Mahoney to get his ass up here and sort everything the fuck out - secret identities be damned - when she spotted Frank rounding the corner of the building, bursting out from the shadows like a shadow himself, black and amorphous and leaving blood in the white snow. And he was running, running fast like his life depended on it - which at that moment it did - and shooting recklessly over one shoulder.

And that’s when she saw it. The other black amorphous shadow running at his side, a thin line of chain connecting them. 

It was the dog. He went back to get the fucking dog. Risked his fucking life and stood up to a small army so a dog wouldn’t need to spend another night in the snow. Frank Castle might be the toughest, meanest son of a bitch she’s ever met in her life, but he’s also the sappiest sap on the planet. And she loves him and hates him for both of those things.

She flung the car door open as he skidded through one of the holes in the fence, the blue pitbull close on his heels and, from what she could see, having the time of its life.

“You went back for the dog?” she asked as he shoved it into the seat next to her and even though she tried to inject some annoyance and incredulity into her voice, she couldn’t. This is Frank Castle. And he went back for the dog. Because he’s Frank Castle and Frank Castle goes back for dogs.

“Drive!” was all he said and she did, a happy as fuck pitbull panting on the seat next to her, fogging up the windows, and Frank shouting directions at her as he proceeded to start a small war from the sunroof.

She doesn’t remember all that much more and she’d like to keep it that way. The mob chased them. The Yakuza chased them. She drove, Frank shot. The dog slobbered on the seats. Just another day in Hell’s Kitchen.

But they’re not in Hell’s Kitchen now. They’d lost their tail as far as they knew and now she’s standing here with Frank Castle in a freezing, rundown cabin near the Catskills, the clusterfuck momentarily over.

Momentarily.

She has no doubt the peace won’t last for long. That’s on the list of Things That Don’t Happen.

He turns away from the window, leans the shotgun against the wall and looks at her. She doesn’t flinch. He’s never had that power over her. He’s never wanted it either. She stares back, holds his gaze and even in the dim light she’s struck by how different he looks. He’s put on some weight and his hair has grown a little so that it’s still close cropped but not shaved. He’s let his stubble grow into the hint of a beard and she finds she likes it. It’s not that he looks softer - she doesn’t think that Frank Castle can look soft - but he looks more human. 

He also doesn’t look tired. He doesn’t look like it’s taking every ounce of willpower to keep standing and breathing and living. He doesn’t look like the world has him beaten anymore. That’s new. She’s not sure she’s ever seen him even approach something remotely close to that before. Maybe there _is_ some kind of catharsis to be found in putting your enemies down. After all, she should know.

And she realises that she's missed him. She’s really missed having this man in her life inasmuch as he ever was in her life before. It's so absurd that she wants to scream and laugh and bang her head against the wall just to get thoughts like that out. But it's true. That night sitting at the dodgy diner, drinking godawful coffee and just listening to him talk was one of the only times in recent months she'd felt okay, at ease almost. He was a friend in a time Karen Page hadn't had many. He listened. He didn't judge. He didn't lie. He didn't treat her like glass and then break her heart like it was his to break. 

No, he skipped the glass part, and that's something at least.

“The pass will be snowed in by now,” he says, shrugs. Leaves it up to her to figure out that that means they’re safe for now but that they also can’t go back. 

She nods, gathers the blanket a little closer, takes a look around. It’s really more toolshed than cabin. Maybe not quite that small but definitely not the log cabin of warm fires and polished floors that grace the pages of travel magazines. There’s a table, chairs, a small couch that the dog has now apparently claimed as its own and some shelves with supplies. She notes some oil lamps, a hot plate and what looks like sleeping bags and thin camping mattresses rolled up next to some tinned food and cheap toilet paper. There’s also what she thinks was intended as a broom cabinet but she’s pretty sure that if she opened it now, it would be full of guns. Actually she’s not pretty sure, she’s dead certain. With an emphasis on the dead part.

“This your place?” she asks and she doesn’t think he’ll answer, but he does.

“One of them,” he shrugs again, brushes past her and she catches a hint of blood and sweat and underneath that a whiff of soap, something that smells of herbs and earth. Of him.

She shivers but she’s not sure it’s the cold. Not sure of anything other than the fact that she’s standing here with him in an isolated cabin and there’s literally nowhere she can go without killing herself. 

And she’s not even slightly scared of what that means.

He’s a mass murderer. She’s safe. Both of these things are true. 

What else is true is that she trusts him. He’s probably the only person in the world to hold this dubious honour. The only person who gets to be on the list of People Karen Page Trusts With Her Life. And she really needs to stop with those lists.

He lights one of the lamps. It’s dim and seems to only cast light on itself but she can’t find it in herself to ask him to light any more. He only lets a little light in and maybe that’s all he can handle for now. Maybe that’s all either of them need.

And then he’s rummaging in a bag and when she turns to see what he’s doing he’s standing in front of her, holding out what looks like a bundle of laundry.

“It’s not much,” he says. “But it’s dry.”

Clothes. Okay. She can do clothes. She’s freezing and the blanket isn’t helping much with her wet blouse and skirt or the boots which are growing colder by the second. She takes them, looks around awkwardly as he goes to the couch, lays a threadbare towel over the dog and scratches it between the ears. It nuzzles his hand and she wonders who the hell thought this dog was even remotely a good choice as protection for anything. It’s as sappy as Frank and that’s saying something. 

He’s talking softly to it, voice low and kind. She swears she hears him call it Luna. 

“Luna?” she asks.

He looks at her. 

“It's a good name. You wanna call her something else?”

Despite herself she laughs. It's dry and hard but it's a laugh.

“Didn't know we were adopting a dog Frank,” she glances around. “Dunno if we’ll pass the home check.”

He smiles, it's wry and a little wan, but it's the first time he's done it this evening, the first time he’s let his guard down enough, and something about that makes her heart beat a little faster, makes her breath catch in her chest.

She knows this isn't right. Her here with him. Alone and abandoned. Making jokes while God knows what's happening to Matt and Elektra. It's not right that allowing herself even a second to imagine some kind of domesticity with Frank, makes her smile, that she doesn't hate the idea. It’s not right, but she doesn’t care. 

He sees it too, she knows he does. There's a moment where she can see he lets himself go, let's his mind wander and contemplate the possibilities. And for the second time tonight something close to peace crosses his face ... and for the second time tonight he fights it off.

And suddenly it's like the air is too thick and the world is too small and they both look away, him at the dog, her at her boots. 

“Ma’am,” he says, focusing on Luna. “You really should change your clothes.”

He bangs on what she imagines to be a small oil heater next to the couch. “Can hang them on here. They'll dry soon.”

Yeah, clothes. 

She’s acutely aware of how her blouse is sticking to her, cold and clammy, and that she's trembling. Part of her wonders if she’ll ever be warm again. Maybe she will but probably not here, not in this freezing cabin where her breath hangs white in the air and her fingers are numb.

“Can you…” She trails off and he looks up at her expectantly. There's something very canine in it, something hopeful, like he wants to please, wants to be of service. “Can you turn around please?”

It takes him a second to parse her meaning, to understand what she's asking. He even looks a little disappointed but she's pretty sure that has more to do with not being given a bigger, more useful task than losing out on seeing her undress. But then he nods slowly, turns away from her and faces the wall, hands still working through Luna’s fur, his scarred, calloused fingers gentle against the dog’s muzzle.

It's mesmerising in its own way. Watching Frank Castle like this. Watching the same man who has murdered more people than she can count, be soft, be kind. Give up his freedom, his life, his comfort for a dog. For her.

He calls her ma’am. It complicates things. Because Frank Castle is a complicated man.

She shivers again and gets back to the business of undressing. She drops the blanket, peels off her blouse which is sodden and filthy and will probably never be that warm cream it was when she put it on this morning. She dithers about removing her bra and then decides to stop being so childish about it. He’s looking away and even if he wasn’t, it’s not like Frank Castle has never seen a pair of tits before. Sure, these are _her_ tits and she knows people talk a good game about being natural and unashamed of the body God gave you, while simultaneously having a thing about nudity specifically when it comes to them. She’s no different, but the thought of staying in the cold, clammy garment, just for the sake of a little prudishness seems the height of idiocy after what they’ve been through. She undoes the hooks, slips the straps off her shoulders and drops it next to her blouse. 

The bruise has spread over her ribs. It’s red and blue, covering her left side from just beneath her breast  down to the swell of her hip. It’s hideous and it’s going to hurt like a bitch in the morning but she has the feeling that everything is going to hurt like a bitch in the morning. Thinks her various battered and bruised body parts are all going to be vying for a first place on the list of Karen Page’s Body Parts That Hurt The Most.

She shakes her head. Tells herself to focus. She strips off her boots, her skirt, her tights. She decides to keep her panties on. Frank probably wouldn’t say anything if she didn’t but there are some places she doesn’t think she’s ready to go yet. And even though she tells herself this is purely functional - she’s cold and wet and they’re stuck and it makes sense not to give hypothermia any more leeway than she already has - handing Frank Castle a white lacy pair of Brazilian bikinis to hang over a heater seems too much of a stretch even for that.

And yes, Frank Castle. Frank Castle still facing away from her, unmoving. So close yet so far. She stands there behind him, nipples hard in the cold, her breathing shallow and fast, white mist making swirling patterns in the air and hair wet down her back. 

It wasn't meant to be like this. She was meant to be ordinary, to have an ordinary job and ordinary friends. An ordinary boyfriend who'd become an even more ordinary husband who'd be a good, but ordinary, father to her wonderful but very ordinary children. She wasn't meant to fall in with Matt, she wasn't meant to love the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She wasn't meant to understand Frank Castle, she wasn't meant to care for him in ways she doesn't think she can put into words. And even if she was, even if all those things were meant to happen and she was supposed to _do_ something, to _mean_ something, she knows she was never meant to be here, more than half naked staring at the back of Frank Castle’s head and only half hoping he won’t turn around.

_And what if he does Karen? What if he turns around right now and he sees you? Not just your legs and your tits, your puckered nipples and your translucent panties. But you? You and your bruises and everything else you have to show, to offer? What then? What if he sees?_

She doesn't know. She doesn't think she has a list for it. She's not even sure what she’d call it other than More Ways In Which Karen Page Fucked Up.

And that's not really a good name. 

She suddenly aware of how quiet and still everything has become. He's no longer stroking the dog and the only movement she can see is the flurry of snow outside. The distance between them stretches long and taught and not nearly as cold as it should be.

“Ma’am?” his voice is soft, but his body tense, muscles standing out starkly under his tight shirt and she wonders what they'd feel like under her hands, how it would be to bury her head between his shoulder blades and cry out all those tears she’ been saving. She wonders what he'd say. If he'd even be surprised or if he'd just let her sob, hold her hands over his belly and fuck the rest.

She thinks she already knows the answer. It's not really a hard question.

He looks down, to the side.  He can't see her but she knows he's straining to hear what she's doing.

“Just a second,” her voice sounds thick, unsure, nothing like it should. “I'm almost done.”

He nods, takes a deep breath and looks back at the wall. 

He’s given her a fleece hoodie, a pair of sweatpants and some socks. All black, probably all his because everything is way too big and she has to tie the cord of the pants in a double knot so as to ensure they don’t fall down.

But it is warm. Blissfully so, and the material is soft against her skin. And her feet aren’t cold and she’s pretty sure that that is right at the top of the list of Things Karen Page Finds Important Right Now.

She drags her wet hair over one shoulder, runs her fingers through it. Hopeless.

“You can turn around now.”

He moves slowly as if he’s making sure she really is ready, giving her a final few seconds to cover up, stop him from seeing anything he shouldn’t.

She wonders what he thinks he shouldn’t see. Wonders if he has a list for it. Thinks he probably does.

She gets a half smile when he sees how badly his clothes fit, but he doesn’t even glance at her bra when he retrieves her clothes from the floor and there’s something very endearing in that. Not that she expected him to make a big scene about it or get weird and creepy like some men do, but she’s still grateful and she’s struck again by how, at his core, Frank Castle is a good man. He’s not a perfect man, he’s not even a very nice man most of the time. But he’s a _good_ man.

He offers her coffee. Says he doesn't have any food besides some energy bars and instant noodles but she's pretty sure she couldn’t eat anyway. It's not just what happened earlier, not just the fear and the adrenalin. It's so, so much more and she's not sure what to do with any of it. 

But yes, coffee. _Coffee’s good_.

He boils water on a small hot plate and she sits next to the dog on the couch squeezing in next to its head. It smells musty and wet and completely and utterly disgusting but she's happy it's here under a towel and not shivering in the snow outside. She touches its ear and it lifts its head to lick her fingers. It's old, white fur covering it’s muzzle, and dark eyes cloudy. It’s probably a little broken too. Like everything else here tonight.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” she asks, she doesn't need to specify who.

“Red’s got himself out of worse,” he says. “Considering there were Russians literally walking around the city openly declaring they had you, I'd say he knew it was a trap going in.”

Interesting. She files that away.

“You too?” it doesn't need an answer.

He shrugs anyway.

“Why though? What's going on in that warehouse?”

He turns around, hands her a cup of black coffee and leans against the table drinking his own. She's struck again by how well he looks.

“Probably nothing,” he glances at Luna, then out the window. “I think something’s coming. Something big. And I think they want anyone out of the way who can stop that. People like me. Like Red. ”

She sips, scalds her tongue. “So they take me.”

She tries to keep her voice neutral but they way he looks at her tells her she's failed. He gets it. She's a liability. Silly little girl that the big men need to keep saving. She's meat and they're dogs and no one really cares whether she gets eaten or not. They think she's weak. Sometimes she thinks they're right or if not, they may as well be. After all it's not like she can take out an advert in the paper saying “Remnants of Fisk empire and other bad guys beware. Karen Page put James Wesley down like a rabid dog. She’s badass. Stay away.”

“I told you not to do that,” he drains his cup. “You're here now. You're safe.”

“Because of you,” she says. “I'm here because you saved me. Because I need rescuing and you and Matt provide it.”

She sounds harsher than she intends. And that's comforting in a way. It gives her something else to hold on to other than the strange flare of jumbled emotions from earlier. Gives her something else to think about other than him and how he's close enough to touch and further away than ever.

He frowns.

“Red saved my life too. No shame in it,” he looks like he's about to add something but stops, toys a little with his mug.

She looks away. 

“ _Red_ ,” she leans on the word. “Tonight was the third time _Red_ saved me. And if you count when he represented me when we first met it was the fourth. And it's the third time you saved me. Guess I'm just the girl who needs saving.”

He sighs, pushes away from the table and crosses to the window. He doesn't need to tell her it's a blizzard outside, doesn't need to tell her they're stuck here at least until it stops but probably until at least some of it is melted. Could be hours if they were lucky, more likely it’ll be most of tomorrow too.

“Ma’am,” he says eventually, leaning against the windowsill. “You can't think like that. If you do you'll…”

He trails off but it's fine. She can fill in the blanks. Go mad. Turn into him. Both.

She shivers, draws the blanket closer around her. The little heater is trying its hardest to warm the place up but, between the weather and her wet clothes, it's failing horribly.

“Cold?” he asks and she nods so he grabs one of the bundled sleeping bags off the shelf, unzips it and tosses it to her, takes a mattress and sets it down on the floor.

“You can sleep if you want,” for the first time he's sounds uncomfortable, like they've headed into unknown territory and he's not sure what to make of it. And she finds that amusing. Not laugh-out-loud amusing, not funny - she has the hysteria under control at least - just mildly interesting that, after everything, it's a camping mattress that sets him on edge.

She shakes her head. “Too wired to sleep Frank.”

And he nods. He doesn't tell her she should or what's best for her, or how he’ll be the big manly man and watch out for her. Instead he grabs the remaining sleeping bag and sinks down on the mattress himself, back against the wall, legs splayed out in front of him, hand resting on the shotgun at his side. 

He scrubs a hand across his face, through his hair, closes his eyes for a long moment and she’s almost sure she hears him humming the first few bars to _Shining Star_. She wonders if there’ll ever be a time when all the paradoxes that come together to make him who he is no longer surprise her. If she’ll ever know every part of him. The violence, the tragedy, the innocence. 

“Where'd you go Frank?” she asks softly, drawing her knees up to her chest, her coffee abandoned on the floor. “I looked for you.”

She had. Not to turn him in, not for a story. She looked for him because she needed him. After Matt came to her with the Daredevil mask in his hands and the lies on his lips, she'd withdrawn. Too many lies, too much deceit. Even though she believed Foggy when he swore he'd told Matt time and time again to let her in on the secret, she’d felt betrayed, lost in a strange limbo that she guesses comes from being between jobs, between boyfriends, between cities, between friends. And she’d needed him, she'd needed Frank. Even though that was ridiculous and she had no right, no claim, and there was no reason Frank Castle should give two shits about her loneliness. 

She didn't find him. Didn't find that honesty she was looking for either.

Until now.

She thinks he’ll tell her that she shouldn't have looked for him, she should have let it be, let sleeping dogs lie but he doesn't.  

“Why?” he asks and she hears genuine surprise in his voice.

_Why? Why? Because I needed a friend you giant asshole. Because I needed someone to lean on, someone to trust. Someone to tell it like it is and say there was more to life than problems that started with an “M” and ended with an “att Murdock”._

She doesn’t say any of it. She just shrugs and that only seems to trouble him more.

“Didn't think anyone but the cops was going to be looking for me,” he says. “Didn't think anybody car—”

He stops himself, catches the word like a naughty child caught swearing in front of a prudish grandparent.

“Cared?” she says it for him and that edge is back. It's not loud, it's not the only thing in her voice, but it's there.

He stares at her, eyes almost black in the dim light. And then he nods, short and sharp and looks away.

“I cared Frank. I cared where you were and what you were doing. Whether you were safe.”

She doesn’t try for angry because she’s not. Not really. Maybe it’s there simmering below the surface, maybe it’s looking for a way out through the cracks in her armour, but mostly she just feels resigned. Resigned to this. Resigned to losing people. Resigned to Hell’s Kitchen and the lies that breed within it.

“I’m sorry,” he says. And she can hear the gravity in his words, how he means them. How he doesn’t deceive her and never will. “I didn’t know.”

She looks away, blinking tears out of her eyes. 

“You know what the worst part is?” she asks and he shakes his head. “Tonight, I was just planning on going home. That’s all I wanted. Instead I’ve been kidnapped, I’ve been beaten and I thought I was going to die. I’ve been shot at and chased, my ex - or whatever he is - might be dead, and now I’m sitting here in the middle of nowhere freezing my ass off and all I can think is ‘Holy fuck, I found Frank Castle and he’s okay.’”

He doesn’t say anything and she’s grateful. She guesses there’s nothing he can say. She guesses that things might be just as fucked up for him as it is for her and she’s not really ready for whatever it is he might want to tell her, if anything. Maybe he also thinks this is too complicated to deal with right now. Maybe he doesn’t have the capacity to _want_ to anymore. And she doesn’t know what she wants him to do anyway. Apologise? He’s already done that. Set the world on fire? He’s done that too. Tell her it’s all going to be okay? Hold her? _Fuck_ her? She squeezes her eyes shut, wills the thought away. 

On the couch Luna rolls over onto her back, oblivious.

“I guess … I guess I just needed someone Frank.”

She shivers violently then, the feeble heat doing nothing to warm her and the sleeping bag even less. She’s freezing, whether from the snow outside or the emotions she’s just expended she doesn’t know, but her bones feel like ice and her side is aching and she’s not sure she’s ever felt quite so miserable in her whole life.

And something changes. She’s not sure what it is or why. She likes to think of herself as a writer, as someone who has a way with words but all she can come up with is that it’s like she was suffocating and someone gave her air. It’s relief. Resignation yes, but still relief.

He looks her up and down and if it was any other man she’d find it lewd. But this is Frank Castle. This is the man who didn’t peek when she stripped behind him, who murders men for hurting women and children, who saves dogs. Who calls her ma’am.

And God, that still complicates things.

And then he bites his lip and holds out his hand. It’s not expectant, it’s not demanding. It just is. _You’re cold. You’re sad. Let me comfort you now if I can._

And he can.

Later she might take the time to consider how exactly it all came to be. How she moved out of herself and into him. How she gave up the cold safety of the small couch for the reckless warmth of him and all he could offer. Why beneath the confusion and pain on his face there was something else. Something close to fear but maybe closer to acceptance. She won’t find an answer and she’ll be oddly grateful for that. This isn’t a time to be considered too much, to be mulled over and dissected. It just is. It’s cruelty and it’s mercy. 

And they both deserve a little mercy.

Teeth chattering, she stands, takes his hand and sinks down between his legs, burrowing her face against the skull on his T-shirt and bunching the fabric between her fingers. He shifts to accommodate her, bending his legs and placing his hand on her belly to draw her close, so close that she imagines he’s trying to leech part of her into himself, that he’s trying to learn her, know her through the shape and her smell. His other hand, the one on the shotgun, flutters awkwardly for a moment, before he wraps it across her chest, blunt fingers digging into her shoulder

And then he lowers his face and sobs into her hair.

Maybe she should be surprised but she’s not. It was always going to come to this one way or another. Because this is what lost things do when they find something to hold on to. And like her, Frank Castle is nothing if not a lost thing.

They don’t talk. Not for a long time anyway. They hold. They cry. They bundle under the sleeping bags and he holds her close and tight and when they’re done sobbing, he rests his cheek against her temple and they listen to the wind howl outside.

She thinks about Matt but only briefly. Thinks about his Big Reveal. How he'd told her who he is and what he does and immediately descended into what she can only describe as a sanctimonious tirade on how he's different from Frank. How he doesn't kill people because killing people is bad and once you've crossed that line you don't get to come back. Not to yourself, not to God. And the more he spoke, the more she realised how important it was for him to create that distance. What he didn't realise was he wasn’t only distinguishing himself from Frank, but from her too.

He didn't know of course. But that didn't make a difference. It didn't then, it doesn't now.

Maybe her and Frank are more similar than she ever imagined. The thought doesn't scare her as much as it once did.

It must be the early hours of the morning when he speaks, when he breaks the silence. It startles her at first, that he would risk this intimacy for words. But the way he brings his lips so close to her ear, the way he speaks with no guile, no artifice, tells her he’s not risking anything at all. He doesn't lie. He speaks truth because truth to him is important, even the ugly bits. Especially the ugly bits. But this isn’t ugly. Not now. He tells her about Maria. He's done it before. Once. That night at the diner that ended in a hail of bullets. But this isn't the same. He tells her about their first date and how he was on his way to pick her up when he found a box of kittens on the side of the road. And how they never made it to the restaurant even though she was all dressed up in the prettiest dress he'd ever seen. How they spent the night driving around looking for kitten food and flea treatment and how that pretty dress was full of snags and cat hair by the time the shelter opened the next morning and they took them in. How they'd ended up having a fight because he insisted they could keep them all and she claimed, quite rightly, that nine kittens between two people, when they both lived in apartments the size of postage stamps, was ridiculous. They didn’t see each other for weeks after because they were both too stubborn. 

He tells her how thought it was over until out of the blue she turned up at his door with a pink cat collar in her handbag and told him that if this thing going on between them worked out that this was a gift, a promise that one day they'd have that kitten. Together. But he needed to be less of an ass. That was rule number one. Rule number two was he owed her dinner and a new dress and rule number three was if he didn’t kiss her right then and there, all bets were off.

She looks up at him, asks what he did. He says he bought Maria a dress and took her to dinner. Says he kissed the lips off her face first.

He sighs, leans his head back against the wall and she knows there’s more coming. His hand on her belly moves slightly until she can feel it touching her bruise. It’s not unpleasant, if anything it’s warm and soothing.

“Lisa ... that’s my little girl...” he starts and she nods. She knows. Oh god she knows. “She loved that story. Would ask me to tell it over and over. Tells me one day that if mama won’t get me a kitten she’ll get one for me. That it’ll be a grey tabby and she wants to call it Daisy.”

His voice catches then, wavers. Breaks. She whispers that it’s okay, runs her thumb along the neck of his shirt, grazing his skin, and he nods. He tells her that after the funfair they were going to the shelter. That they were going to give his baby girl what she always wanted, what her daddy always wanted too. That the next thing he knew he woke up in a hospital bed with a bullet in his brain and his family gone. That no matter what happens now, whether he ends up dead or hailed as a hero, whether he kills a million more men or none at all, he’ll never have a grey tabby called Daisy. It was something only for his girl. How he doesn’t even really want a cat but he misses the hypothetical one he’ll never have.

She shifts, brings her hand up to grip his arm, to trace the lines of it. It's not sexual. At least not yet. Not specifically. But it's something like it. Something close. Something that's maybe more comfort than anything else. She doesn't fully understand it yet but she's learning and so is he. 

He’s quiet again. Melancholy. And for a while her whole world becomes his hand covering her bruise, his breath against her ear.

“You warmer now?” he asks eventually.

She nods. “It’s almost balmy. Tropical even.”

She feels his smirk more than sees it, imagines how his mouth is twisting on one side, the small hitch in his chest. 

“Gonna put your hula skirt on?” he asks. 

She nods. “And my bikini.”

He chuckles dryly and she does too and he gathers her closer, his hands tightening on her, and he lowers his head and breathes deeply like he's trying to write her into his memory with her scent. That again he seems more animal than human. 

She considers that there’s a good possibility she’s being melodramatic, that emotions are running high and that they’re both crashing and maybe all these things belong on the list of Things That Only Exist In Karen Page’s Wildest Delusions, but she doesn't think so. She _can’t_. She's here, she's alive and so is he and the world’s sappiest pitbull is snoring on the couch. It's not even far-fetched to imagine Frank Castle finds some relief in her, if nothing else. Some peace.

And if he can find it, maybe she can too.

“I killed a man,” it slips out easily. It's simple as if she's telling him about her day or her favourite colour. There's no inflection, no preamble. Just honesty. As honest as he's been with her. “He wanted to hurt me, he wanted to hurt Matt and Foggy, so I shot him.”

He's bowing his head again as if he's listening to a secret, as if she's talking in whispers. She wonders if she should continue. If it'll just be excuses or if he wants to know. If he can be that place she can keep her mysteries. The absent-minded circles he's rubbing into her arm tells her he can. 

“He didn't think I would do it. He thought I was weak, that I was scared. I was. But I did it anyway. I shot him and he died and I ran.”

She doesn’t add that she’s still running. She doesn’t need to. He knows. There’s no way he can’t.

She breathes out and even though she doesn't feel cold any longer her breath makes patterns in the air, swirls and spirals and beautiful things that she wants to catch and keep forever. 

She waits for him to ask who it was, to demand times and dates and in-depth descriptions, all of which she's ready to give. But he doesn't and he doesn't loosen his grip either. So she sits there, hand holding his arm, head fitted into the hollow of his neck, lulled almost by the gentle motion of his fingers. 

And eventually, so softly that she very nearly doesn't catch it, he whispers.

“Thank you.”

She closes her eyes. There are tears on her cheeks and she knows he can probably feel them on his skin but she doesn't care. He's here and he's warm and he's stopping her from falling, anchoring her, and that's all that counts. All that will ever count.  

So he holds her and she holds him back and despite everything and all this bullshit, she’s calm and she thinks he is too. She wonders what it would be like if she turned to face him now, if he would pull her close, fingers clawing at her clothes, bury his face in her chest and hold her until morning. Or if he’d pull away, break the spell. It might be too much for both of them and she doesn’t want to go back to that world of bad coffee and cold couches.

But she doesn’t turn. She doesn’t want to ruin this moment. For the first time in what feels like years Karen Page is content. Instead she presses closer, breathes gently into his neck, feels his pulse jumping, his skin tightening into goosebumps.

He sighs, grinds his teeth.

“These people,” he starts and she opens her eyes. “They don’t choose people who are weak. They don’t care about that. They choose people who are important to others. People who can hurt.”

He slides his hand from her shoulder to her neck, drags his fingers through her hair. It tugs a little but she doesn’t care.

“These assholes, they don’t know shit about you, except that people care about you. They do what they do because it’ll hurt.”

She knows what he’s saying is true. It’s cold comfort though.

“They know you’re alive now,” she says. “They’ll come after you.”

He shrugs and his hand drops backs to her shoulder, squeezes.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she continues and shivers. “You knew Matt was going. You should have left it, let him handle it. You shouldn’t have come.”

“I had to,” soft again, another secret.

She shakes her head. “Why?”

And that’s when he jerks away. Not far, but deliberate, determined, violent even - as if she’s struck him. She lifts her head and he’s staring at her with an expression so unlike anything she’s ever seen cross his face that she almost doesn’t recognise him, wonders if she’s been dreaming and is now trying to swim through the thick fog that exists between waking and sleeping.

She’s said something to unsettle him, even she can see that.

“Frank?”

He doesn’t answer at first. Just stares at her long and hard as if he’s trying to find something, a lie, a half truth, an angle. And when he doesn’t, he looks even more anxious.

“Don’t you know?” he asks, voice thick. Husky.

It’s the gravity of the question that gets her. The earnestness. The hitch in his voice that he doesn’t even try to hide. 

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Karen Page. None so blind.

Until now.

He doesn’t look away and she lets the moment stretch, doesn’t give much thought to where it’s going or why. She allows herself the time to absorb this new revelation, to understand it. There’s no way to beat this into submission, no list to make it seem smaller and less scary. It is what it is. Alone, stark, out there in the cold air for her to do with what she likes. She guesses this changes everything. And also nothing. And she doesn’t know what to do with it either way. 

And then his hand on her belly flutters uncertainly and the one at her shoulder eases. He looks like he might say something, like he’s searching for the words in his head but instead there’s something in his chest, his heart, that’s trying to eat its way out, words trying to burst through his ribcage and not his mouth. 

He’s a violent man in most aspects of his life, she guesses there’s no reason why this should be any different. 

Or maybe there’s every reason. 

She raises her hand, touches his cheek. This shouldn’t be difficult. It shouldn’t. Moments like these, so few and far between, so fundamentally wonderful and so terrifying aren’t meant to hurt. Even The Punisher deserves that. 

She can make sure he gets it. She can make it right.

She runs her thumb over his lips, soft, slow. But he’s still and stoic and she thinks she might still lose him, that he’ll be up and pacing and make some excuse as to why he needs to go outside and see what’s going on in the blizzard. She waits for it, steels herself for the moment he takes himself and his warmth away. But then he turns his head and nuzzles her palm, eyes fluttering closed as he takes a ragged breath and she thinks maybe, just maybe, he’s also been cleansed of all his mysteries, given up his secrets and found a path that is a little less dimly lit than all the others. 

She thought she didn't know. But she did. She always knew.

And then she leans into him, resting her head back in the hollow of his neck, covering his hand at her waist with her own, waiting for him to part his fingers so she can slide hers between them. Hold him there. 

_It's okay. Stay. You don't have to go anywhere. It doesn’t have to hurt._

And he stays. He bows his head again, lowers his mouth to her shoulder and presses a kiss into the fabric of her sweater. He breathes her name. _Karen_. And there’s something in the way he says it that makes her want to cry. Cry and laugh and scream. 

But she does none of these things. Instead she moves in close, let’s her lips brush against his pulse. It’s not even a real kiss, but it’s an approximation of one. A promise.

 _Karen_.

He calls her Karen.

She thinks that might be even more complicated than calling her ma’am.

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel and some general musings available [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7502214).


End file.
